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The Canadian economy continues to adjust to developments in the global economy.

The Bank of Canada has been examining the issue of how the Canadian economy adjusts movements in the exchange rate for a long time. Canada's economy is very open, so we always need to understand how exchange rate movements are affecting real economic activity and, in turn, what the implications are for monetary policy.

Higher interest rates are working to ease price pressures in Canada and inflation is coming down, though progress to the 2% target is slow. The Bank projects that inflation will stay around 3½% until the middle of 2024, returning to target in 2025.

Coletti and Lalonde compare inflation targeting and price-level targeting in the context of a small open economy subject to sizable terms-of-trade shocks. The authors summarize recent research that compares the ability of price-level targeting and inflation targeting to stabilize the macroeconomy when confronted with shocks similar to those experienced by Canada in recent years. Their preliminary results suggest that price-level targeting may represent a feasible alternative to traditional inflation targeting. Their article also provides insight into the direction of current research in this area at the Bank.

We provide empirical evidence on the impact of oil supply shocks on global aggregates. To do this, we first extract structural oil supply shocks from a standard oil-price determination model found in the literature.

The global economy has suffered an intense, synchronous recession and considerable excess supply has opened up.

In this issue of the Financial System Review, the Bank of Canada’s Governing Council judges that the risks to the stability of Canada’s financial system are high and have increased markedly over the past six months, owing primarily to an escalation of the sovereign debt crisis in the euro area and a weaker global economic outlook.

Erratum: The data for Chart 7 on page 8 were plotted incorrectly. See revised chart.

Existing literature documents that house prices respond to monetary policy surprises with a significant delay, taking years to reach their peak response. We present new evidence of a much faster response.

The process that the Bank of Canada follows to make its monetary policy decisions has evolved over time. This process is very information-intensive and collaborative, drawing on the expertise, judgment and analysis of many people. This article describes monetary policy decision making at the Bank, and discusses some common misconceptions about monetary policy and the process.

We summarize the review and renewal process at four central banks (Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Bank of England, Sveriges Riksbank and the US Federal Reserve Bank) and compare them with the process at the Bank of Canada, which has been well-established since 2001.